A mesmerizing figure in concert, Charles Munch was celebrated for
his electrifying public performances. He was a pioneer in many
arenas of classical music-establishing Berlioz in the canon,
perfecting the orchestral work of Debussy and Ravel, and leading
the world to Roussel, Honegger, and Dutilleux. A pivotal figure,
his accomplishments put him on a par with Arturo Toscanini and
Leonard Bernstein. In Charles Munch, D. Kern Holoman provides the
first full biography of this giant of twentieth-century music,
tracing his dramatic survival in occupied Paris, his triumphant
arrival at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and his later years, when
he was a leading cultural figure in the United States, a man known
and admired by Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. He
turned to conducting only in middle age, after two decades as a
violinist and concertmaster, a background which gave him special
insight into the relationship between conductor and orchestra. At
the podium, his bond with his musicians unleashed something in them
and in himself. "A certain magic took wing that amounts to the very
essence of music in concert," the author writes, as if "public
performance loosed the facets of character and artistry and poetry
otherwise muffled by his timidity and simple disinclination to say
much." In concert, Munch was arresting, even seductive, sweeping
his baton in an enormous arch from above his head down to his knee.
Yet as Holoman shows, he remained a lonely, even sad figure, a
widower with no children, a man who fled admirers and avoided
reporters. With groundbreaking research and sensitive, lyrical
writing, Charles Munch penetrates the enigma to capture this
elusive musical titan.
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